Related to the earlier astronaut rocket pack, United Tech also produced artwork for a virtually identical appearing pack for soldiers. Because, you know, soldiers would have to leap over so many cliffs in Viet Nam.

Some people take the Obama worship just a little too far… up to and including threats of violence in case he loses. Granted, this is the internet, where people talk bigger than they act in real life… but there is a kernel of whackadoodle prophetic truth in some of this. Here’s an article about the possibility of Obama losing… and some of the rather psychotic responses.

If Obama loses, that means that votes weren’t counted. And if that happens, we’re fucked. I truly think that this would push people over the edge and I do think shit will go down. Like riots and violence, kinda shit.

And if Obama’s team fucks this up, which they probably will, we all should be shocked and probably throw in a little destruction to show ’em that we’re serious.

That said, just in case Obama loses, I think I will begin research for An Arsonist’s Guide to the Red States.

That said… if Barry Hussein loses, I’m going to burn something down and then move to Canada.

And this is without looking at threads on such intellectual sewers as “Daily Kos” and “Democratic Underground.” How are the Obama fanatics and left-wing racists going to respond if Obama does in fact lose? There are at least two major forms of losing… one would be a close race like 2000, where it’ll be easy to claim that the race was stolen; and there’s always the faint possibility that McCain will pull off a major undisputed victory. in the latter case, i suspect that pretty much all we’ll see is a lot of morose Obamessiahists. But in the former case, I would not be the least bit surprised if violence occurs.

And if McCain loses? A whole lot of morose conservatives, trying to figure out how to hoard their funds and game the new and “improved” tax codes sure to come down the pike.

A very early ’60s concept from United Tech showing an Apollo astronaut using a hybrid rocket “jetpack” to ascend a lunar cliff face. The lander in the background was anothe UTC concept, also using a hybrid rocket for main propulsion. At the time, UTC was really pushing the hybrid rocket concept.
What exactly the astronaut is supposed to be breathing is left to the imagination.

H.R. 6615: To provide for the transport of the enemy combatants detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba…

To provide for the transport of the enemy combatants detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to Washington, D.C., where the United States Supreme Court will be able to more effectively micromanage the detainees by holding them on the Supreme Court grounds, and for other purposes.

Didn’t like your last flight? Quit yer bitchin’. Ain’t least you had it better than this poor dame…

On July 20th, Julianna’s (delayed) Delta flight landed in Atlanta at 7:30pm, with a connecting flight scheduled for 8:05pm. Julianna, who has muscular dystrophy, missed the connecting flight because nobody came with a wheelchair until 8:05—the same time the connecting flight took off. To make matters worse, the plane crew told Julianna she might make the flight anyway if she stopped waiting for help and got off the plane right now, so she crawled down the stairs on her own. When the wheelchair came she was “wheeled into a back room and advised” that her plane had taken off. But that was just the first half of her ordeal, and the next eight hours only got worse.

If this story is true (one can hardly tell… it’d be easy to invent, but it’s also very easy to believe), I smell a lawsuit.

The YouGov poll was conducted for the Right-wing think tank, the Centre for Social Cohesion, at 12 universities, including Imperial College and Kings College London. It also found:

40 per cent support the introduction of sharia into British law for Muslims

a third back the notion of a worldwide Islamic caliphate (state) based on sharia law

40 per feel it is unacceptable for Muslim men and women to mix freely

24 per cent do not think men and women are equal in the eyes of Allah

a quarter have little or no respect for homosexuals.

Although 53 per cent said that killing in the name of religion was never justified, compared with 94 per cent of non-Muslims, 32 per cent said that it was. Of these, 4 per cent said killing could be justified to “promote or preserve” religion, while 28 per cent said it was acceptable if that religion were under attack.

…

The report’s authors found that Islamic societies on campus, operating under the umbrella of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, exert a strong influence on many of Britain’s 90,000 Muslim students. A quarter of them belong to Islamic societies and their views are often more extreme.

While three-fifths of society members said that killing in the name of religion was acceptable…

Way to live the stereotype, people. Just keep in mind: not every religion pretends to be a “religion of peace.” Not every religion thinks that “turning the other cheek” is a necessarily noble thing to do in the face of evil.

But many analysts believe that if Obama completes his march to the Oval Office, this backing will dissipate the first time he presses Europe to send more troops to Afghanistan or to support an aggressive U.S. military stance at odds with Europe’s strong preference for diplomacy over cruise missiles.

…

“I think some Europeans don’t understand that what plays well here may not be playing well at home,” said Anand Menon, director of the European Research Institute at the University of Birmingham in England. “The slogan, ‘Barack Obama, the guy the foreigners like’ is not necessarily a vote winner in the United States.”

In 1964, NASA and numerous contractors studied “Post Saturn” launch vehicles. A common design element was a payload of one million pounds to low Earth orbit. Designs such as the Douglas ROMBUS, the Aerojet Sea Dragon, the Boeing MLLV and the Convair Nexus were all a part of this.

I have done some digging into the Post Saturn projects, and in some cases (Sea Dragon, MLLV) turned up nicely detailed reports; in the case of ROMBUS, I got about halfway to the good stuff, and in the case of Nexus I was only able to get some surface details. I tried several times to get the actual final reports from NASA through FOIA, but was shot down every time; it took a while, but I was finally able to get an answer as to why the reports were unreleasable: “They have drawings of rockets in them.” Grrrrr.

While the final Nexus reports have continued to elude me, I’ve picked up bits and pieces over the years. Below is a derivative of the Nexus, equipped with gasc core nuclear rocket engines. The nukes were to have an Isp of 2220 seconds, giving the vehicle a payload delivery to the Moon (likely lunar orbit, not surface) of one million pounds. I’ve found no further data on this design so far. Gas core nukes showed high promise in the early sixties, but unfortunately the practical problems of building such an engine were not overcome. Not that the anti-nuke movement would have allowed them to be built anyway…

I was supposed to receive the actual job offer and associated paperwork via FedEx Friday or Saturday, and then leave for MD on Wednesday. As of Monday… no paperwork. I did see the Fed Ex van zip on by down the road, though.

Another rare piece of early Dyna Soar color art. This one shows the Dyna Soar heading to space atop the centaur upper stage of an Atlas booster. And if you think you are seeing corrugations on the back of the spaceplane, you are correct. At this stage in the design process the Dyna Soar *did* […]

So the media is currently ulcerating over Trump suggesting that he’d like to see NFL owners fire players who decide to disrespect the US flag & anthem before games. Here’s the thing: 1: It’s the players right to disrespect the flag, the anthem, the US. 2: It’s any citizens right to say that he’d like […]

Yes, I’ve posted these before. But I feel it’s important for everyone to maintain a proper level of understanding of the encabulator, the turbo-encabulator and the retro-encabulator. And of course once you have an encabulator, you’ll need to diagnose it from time to time: There have of course been advances in the field […]

Argh. Facebook is not my favorite thing. But, apparently, it’s where all the cool kids hang out, so the Aerospace Projects Review Facebook page that I cobbled together years ago, I’ve started posting things in again. One of the weird things about Facebook is that you (apparently) can’t see a page unless you are signed […]

Oh, boy! Mayhem! A Group Of 62 Catholics Has Accused The Pope Of Spreading Heresy Not being Catholic, I have no dog in this fight. Still, it’s always entertaining when religious leaders tell other religious leaders they’re wrong. Wacky hijinks often ensue.

So, Star Trek Discovery plopped onto the airwaves tonight. My review: It was certainly pretty, but all those visuals were spoiled by a whole lot of “WTF am I looking at?” Especially with the “Klingons” who bore almost no relationship to any prior iteration of the Klingons, in biology, aesthetics or culture. Heck, they even […]

… in a drone: This is pretty much exactly the sort of footage that would have been impossible to get prior to the current generation of drones. So just imagine what people will be able to film once the batteries for drones are actually *good,* with the power and energy density of chemical fuels like […]

OK, let’s say your town is plagued by a transdimensional monster that takes the form of a killer psychotic clown. Who would be the best person to try to destroy this menace? That’s right, the goddamn Batman: And because why not: Bill Nye just walked into our elevator while I was snap chatting.. pic.twitter.com/LwCOITAEft […]

A deli worker was attacked, someone came across the counter and slashed at him with a knife. He fought back with a knife of his own, and the other guy got the worse of it. So, what happened? Did the city of New York throw the deli worker a ticker tape parade? Give him the […]